Ufl 23 
, .B75 
Copy 1 



THE MODERN SOLDIER CAN NOT BE 
MADE IN A DAY 



THE ARMY IS A LEARNED PROFESSION, WITH INTRICATE,:CLEARLY DEFINED, 

AND DIFFICULT SPECIALTIES, AND MEN MUST BE CAREFULLY 

AND THOROUGHLY TRAINED- 



By HENRY BRECKINRIDGE 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1915 






D, of D. 
FEB 3 1916 






^ THE MODERN SOLDIER CAN NOT BE MADE IN A DAY. 

By HENRY BRECKINRIDGE, Assistant Secretary of War. 



Five years ago about this time I was sitting in the office of a 
prominent Baltimore attorney. I was talking army to him. He 
Avas an unusually intelligent man, conservative, fairly learned, at 
least in the law, and with a reasonable knowledge of affairs. In 
the course of the conversation he asked me — 

Why should a man go into the Army? What is there in it to 
make it a life work? After he has learned to drill and shoot, his 
life is simpl}^ a matter of routine. Larger talents do not bring any 
larger financial returns. And, altogether, I can not see that the 
Army is any place for a man who wishes to make the most of his 
resources of intellect and character. 

The attitude of this man is not an uncommon one among intelli- 
gent Americans. The European war has drawn the attention of 
the public mind to things military to an unwonted degree. But 
there remains on the part of many people a lack of appreciation of 
what the military service is, of what is required to make a soldier 
and an officer, and of the fact that the military profession, of a 
verity, is a learned profession. Despite the vivid demonstration of 
the last year, there still lingers the impression in some quarters 
that all you have to do to make a soldier is to put a uniform on his 
back, shoes on his feet, rifle in his hand, give him ammunition, a 
knapsack, and the untrained American patriot is prepared to cope 
with the best trained soldier in the world. The task yet remains to 
dispel completely the illusion that a sword in the hand, a strap on 
the shoulder, and the fire of patriotism in the eye of the American 
volunteer are all that is required to make an officer fit to lead the 
improvised soldier to victorious conflict with trained armies. 

What is endeavored to be demonstrated in this article is that the 
Army is a learned profession; that to be a successful officer of 
the Army requires as high a development of the intellect and char- 
acter as is needed for success in any other learned profession; that 
the Army is not only a learned profession, but that it is a learned 
profession with as many intricate, clearly defined, and difficult 
specialties as are to be found, for instance, in the great profession 
of medicine. 

There are two great divisions of the military profession — first, 
technical, and, second, tactical and strategical. 

(3) 



I. — Technical. 

As medicine has a surgeon, oculist, aurist, gynecologist, pediatri- 
cian, psychiatrist, and other specialists, so the Army has its surgeon, 
judge advocate, quartermaster, ordnance officer, engineer, and signal 
officers. The average officer is no more or less fit to perform without 
preliminary instruction the duties of an ordnance officer, for in- 
stance, than is an obstetrician fit to perform an operation for 
cataract. 

ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT. 

Where do the rifles, bayonets, pistols, scabbards, cartridges, packs, 
harness, field guns, and mammoth Coast Artillery cannon come 
from? Wlio makes them? Who designs them? The officers of 
ordnance. A small cartridge looks a simple thing. We speak 
glibly of great numbers of rifles. Smokeless powder and other high 
explosives we know to be essential, but we have very little appre- 
ciation of what it means to provide them. How many of us appre- 
ciate the intricate chemical and mechanical processes required in 
the manufacture of smokeless powder? How many of us realize 
that 33 complete chemical and mechanical operations have to be 
gone through with accuratelj', precisely, carefully, before white 
cotton, mixed with sulphuric and nitric acids, becomes smokeless 
powder? And after, with elaborate processes, the powder is made 
at the Picatinny Arsenal, it must travel from Dover, N. J., to the 
Frankford Arsenal, outside Philadelphia, there to be but an element 
in the 40 complete manufacturing and assembling operations that 
are required to make a rifle cartridge. 

A rifle is a more or less simple-looking mechanism, but to make 
this rifle 1,223 separate manufacturing operations must be executed. 

One round of 3-inch shrapnel means 355 operations; to make an 
automatic pistol, 614; and for the terrible little mitrailleuse or 
machine gun, 1,990. The lightest 3-inch field gun costs $1,400 and 
requires in the making a number of different operations, the enu- 
meration of which would be exceedingly tiresome. 

And through the different calibers we come to the 14-inch coast- 
defense gun made at Watervliet Arsenal at Albany, weighing 
when finished 138,000 pounds and costing $55,000 and wound about 
with 37,000 pounds of wire. The disappearing carriage for this 
mighty weapon that lifts it above the parapet to hurl its mighty 
missile and racking charge a half score of miles to sea — to attempt 
to describe its intricacies would but confuse my own and the 
reader's mind. One of these carriages involves as many as 3,000 
separate parts. 

It is the officer of the Ordnance Department that must conceive, 
plan, design, manufacture, issue, and repair all this category of 



material which goes to make up the implements of an army. Wliat 
must he know to perform these functions'^ What must be his 
training to guide with efficiency the labor of the 6,000 workmen 
in the six great establishments where the ordnance material of the 
Army is made ? 

A designer and constructor of ordnance must be a mechanical 
engineer capable of computing the stresses brought upon the parts 
of complicated structures by the control of masses set in motion 
by the action of immense forces which he must be able to determine. 
He must master the methods of arranging and proportioning the 
parts of the structures so that they may withstand the forces of 
which he shall have previously determined the magnitude, and he 
must be familiar with the processes of the constructive arts which 
are concerned with the fabrication of machines, in order that he 
may take full advantage of their possibilities and may not produce 
impracticable designs requiring the impossible. He must under- 
stand chemistry, which enters into the composition and action of 
explosives, his main source of supply of primary power, and the 
art of metalhirgy, which supplies him with his usual material for 
utilizing and controlling power. He must be equipped with the 
loiowledge of an electrical engineer, that he may deal with that 
power which is finding increasing application in the operation 
of ordnance constructions and plants for producing them. He 
must be familiar with the science of optics, in order that tele- 
scopic and other optical instruments for sights and fire-control 
instruments may be properly designed and inspected. And his 
knowledge of these subjects must include a specially sound mastery 
of principles, as he is generally without the aid of handbooks and 
practical treatises so useful in cojnmercial work. 

In addition to the material that is manufactured in the Govern- 
ment arsenals large quantities are purchased from private manu- 
facturers. Procurement by manufacture requires expert knowledge 
of manufacturing processes, including machine operations, foundry 
work, forging, pattern making, leather working, woodworking, 
pressed steel construction, plating, w^heel construction, brass draw- 
ing, manufacture of powder and high explosives, grinding of lenses, 
assembling and testing optical instruments, forging and testing 
armor-piercing j^rojectiles, etc. It further necessitates expert 
Imowledge of power plants, fuels, oils, .machinery, raw materials, 
and electrical instalhitions. In short, it requires all of the expert 
loiowledge necessary for the economical operation of large manu- 
facturing plants, and the greater part of it pertaining to manu- 
facture of the most exacting type. Chemical testing and research 
work for powders and higher explosives, as w^ell as analyses and 



6 

tests of oils, paints, etc., are carried on at the Picatinny Arsenal, 
and metallurgical, chemical, and physical tests and research work 
are carried on at the Watertown Arsenal in connection with the 
manufacture of iron and steel, physical tests of material for com- 
mercial purposes, and microscopical and physical tests for the 
department. This class of employment requires very exact scien- 
tific attainments of the officers in charge. 

Experimental work in general, tests of powder and material, are 
conducted at the Sandy Plook Proving Ground. For this employ- 
ment intimate knowledge of interior and exterior ballistics, action 
of powder and explosiA^es, and manipulation of delicate electrical 
and other testing instruments arc required. 

So it is readily seen that though many a patriotic citizen, when 
the country is in danger, might rush forward to be an officer of 
ordnance, he would not be of very much use after he had rushed. 

SIGNAL COKPS. 

One of the greatest advances made in the art of war during recent 
years has to do with the service of information. The motor cycle, 
the swift automobile, the land military telegraph line, field tele- 
phone systems, field wireless telegraph outfits, and the aeroplane 
have revolutionized the system of communication and of obtaining 
information. The great service of information is specialized in by 
the Signal Corps, and the efficient handling of all the apparatus 
that pertains to this service can only be by highly trained and 
experienced individuals. In case of war a thousand patriots might 
rush forward for service in the aviation corps. By the time the 
war was over they might have obtained sufficient Iniowledge to make 
them useful. 

ENGINEER CORPS. 

The engineer is another essential military specialist. The swift 
building of a pontoon bridge over turbulent streams may be required 
to win a victory or save an arm3^ Military engineering consists, 
broadly, of the application of engineering science for the accom- 
plishment of military purposes. And military' engineering, there- 
fore, requires an extensive knowledge of military art and also of 
the art of the engineer. He builds all the harbor defenses. He 
must be an expert in field engineering in all its branches, including 
fortifications, the use of explosives, construction of bridges, roads, 
and field railroads, reconnoissance and survey, including field 
astronomy, photography, and lithography. He must have knowl- 
edge of electrical and mechanical engineering, which is required in 
the operation of searchlights, electrical mines, lighting plants, and 
power machinery for carrying out all sorts of field work. 



MEDICAL CORPS. 

It is very natural for the query to arise in one's mind as to why 
any good doctor would not make an efficient medical officer of the 
Army. There are many reasons. In the first place, the problem 
of administration in the Army Medical Corps presents features 
not dealt with in private practice. And the great field of military 
sanitation as applied in the military service by medical officers is 
a distinct specialty. It embraces the subjects taught in post- 
graduate courses in some of the most progressive medical schools 
under the caption of "Public Health and Preventive Medicine." 
It includes also those special measures which have been developed 
entirely within the military service for the care of troops in the 
field, where large bodies of men are brought together without the 
modern methods of waste disposal available in towns and cities. A 
few years ago it was considered impossible for troops to continue 
to camp on the same ground for a longer period than two weeks 
without camp diseases becoming epidemic. At the present time 
in the United States Army, even under unfavorable conditions of 
climate and terrain, troops remain on the same ground under 
canvas for indefinite periods with a continuously low sick list. 
The special knowledge necessary to inaugurate and maintain these 
conditions is of the highest importance to the health of the army 
and to its battle efficiency. Again, the recruitment, instruction, 
and control of the Hospital Corps and the Army Nurse Corps is a 
special field for the military surgeon. 

The establishment of aid stations, dressing stations, hospitals, and 
other formations for the care of sick and wounded on the field of 
battle; the medical officer must understand where these formations 
should be established in order to obtain the best results and at the 
same time not interfere with the movement of ammunition trains, 
reserves, or other bodies of troops necessary to battle success. To 
enable him to perform these duties successfully and to obtain a 
reasonable degree of protection from fire for his wounded, a medical 
officer must have knowledge of the range and trajectory of pro- 
jectiles; he must be able to read a map and to estimate therefrom 
the places most protected from rifle fire, from artillery fire; the 
most direct lines of aid to the front and for the evacuation of 
wounded to the rear; the slopes that are prohibitory for wheeled 
vehicles, the places where watercourses may be forded, etc. In 
short, the Medical Corps of the Army is the great conserving 
agency of a destructive organization. To wage w^ar successfully, 
the greatest amount of destruction must be visited upon the armed 
forces of the enemy. For this end is required the utmost conserva- 



8 

tion of the health, energies, and life of the Army. And to this 
great end the highly trained and specialized Medical Corps is 
absolutely essential. 

QUARTERMASTER CORPS. 

The capacity for organization and administration required of 
officers in the Quartermaster Corps of the Army is at least equal 
to that required in the great supply departments of any of the 
combinations of capital and units of economic production in the 
world. Problems of paying, feeding, clothing, and transporting 
armies and their supplies are full of complexities and difficulties, 
the enumeration of which space does not permit. Nothing is more 
true than the oft-quoted and vigorous statement that an {irmy 
marches on its belly. A single weak link in the chain of the supply 
sj^stem may lose a battle, and an uneducated and untrained quarter- 
master is as useless and defective as would be a novice in the control 
of the great power plants that have harnessed the Falls of Niagara. 

JUDGE ADVOCATE. 

It may seem a strange statement that the Army must have attor- 
neys and counselors just as much as the United States Steel Cor- 
poration must have them. For instance, the present Judge Advo- 
cate General of the Army, upon the institution of American gov- 
ernment in the Philippine Islands, completely organized the various 
departments of government on the civil side. Of his work. ex- 
President Taft, the president of the Philippine Commission which 
succeeded the military governor as the governing authority in the 
Philippine Islands, said tliat "Col. Crowder's activities were limited 
only by what would be the limitations of a civil government and 
legislature." Under his administration there were prepared cus- 
toms regulations, coast trade regulations, and the municipal law 
of the Philippine Islands which intrusted the people of the prov- 
inces and municipalities with a great part of the management of 
their local affairs, thus preparing them for the exercise of self- 
government. He so amended the Spanish code of criminal pro- 
cedure by a military order as to make it conform to our common 
law and constitutional principles. This order still governs criminal 
procedure in the Philippine Islands. He reorganized the courts 
of the Philippine Islands and was an associate justice on the civil 
side of the supreme court for the first year after its reorganization. 
During the intervention by the United States in Cuba, from 1906 
to 1909, the present Judge Advocate General was acting secretary 
of state and justice. He was legal adviser to the provisional gov- 
ernor, president of the advisory commission, and in charge of the 
electoral administration. Laws regulating the registration of 
voters and the conduct of elections were framed. 



9 

In citing this individual record of service in the Army's law 
department I do it to show what may be the career of an Army 
kludge Advocate and what is required to enable him worthily to 
meet the demands of such a career. 

II. 

Let us now turn from the consideration of the great technical 
specialties that are so necessary to the efficiency of an army and 
consider why it is that the soldier who walks or rides and shoots 
and fights can lay claim to the respect that is due worthy members 
of a learned profession. 

Why is it that any man who can tote a pack and carry a rifle can 
not be transformed immediately into an effective infantryman? 
Why is it that one who adds to these capabilities some knowledge 
of horsemanship can not in the tAvinkling of an eye, by the donning 
of a uniform, be a worthy cavalryman, or, with a little training in 
pointing a gun, l^e a pretty good artillerist? And in the higher 
fields of leadership, why can't any good American organizer, with 
sound judgment and courage, attain military success in larger 
operations ? 

THE QUEEN OF BATTLES. 

Dashing Cavalry may effect a brilliant raid in the rear of the 
enemy and in a hundred ways vindicate and justify its existence 
and necessity. Many a critical situation may be saved by the 
steadfastness and power of the Field Artillery. But the founda- 
tion of the Army structure is the plodding, trudging, digging, 
sweating, burden-bearing infantryman. When the lay mind has 
been persuaded that the technical specialists can not be improvised 
and that even the cavalryman and artilleryman must have some 
modicum of training before efilcienc}' is attained, extremel}^ per- 
sistent is the tendency still to think that the very foundation of 
an army can be summoned into being as if by magic. Many 
present-day Americans have no experience Avith horses. And the 
individual's conviction that one who is a horseman is therefore 
superior to himself in that particular line is what makes it fairly 
easy to convince the lay mind of the necessity of adequately trained 
Cavalry. The same thing applies to the Field Artillery or any 
branch of the service that has to do with implements more or less 
mysterious to the ordinary individual through lack of his acquaint- 
ance therewith. But everybody knows he can walk and carry a 
pack on his back at least a little ways and point a rifle and pull a 
trigger. And thus there seems to have been in the minds of our 
people, from the first until the present, an abiding illusion that an 
infantryman can be improvised. But he can't. 



10 ■ 

A very simple thing it seems to care for one's feet. But as a 
matter of fact the care of the feet in marching is an art in itself, 
and if unlearned the ignorance of it will destroy a command. And 
marching. An improvised army would be marched to death by 
trained troops before any physical contact need be gained. In ma- 
neuvering for position untrained and unhardened troops would 
wilt and drop by the wayside in exhaustion while trained armies 
were playing hide and seek with them all over the terrain. The 
mere factor of physical condition and not general physical condi- 
tion, but the particular and special physical fitness trained to per- 
form the peculiar task and meet the special exigencies of service 
as an infantryman in the field, can only be come at by the most 
rigorous training. 

Anyone can charge across an open field. But on that field, seem- 
ing from a short distance as flat as the palm of one's hand, the 
trained infantryman, with his laiowledge of the use of ground for 
cover, is about half as likely to die in such a critical undertaking 
as the unknowing novice. 

The modern rifle, is an efficient weapon. Its trajectory is flat up 
to a considerable range. That is, the bullet in passing through its 
course over a given distance goes on a level in a plane, putting 
everything in its way in danger, and does not have to describe a 
curve going up and coming down in order to reach a fairly distant 
mark. The trained soldier loiows this and knows that the slightest 
depression in the landscape will give him more or less safety from 
an enemy rifleman. For instance, a greenhorn, in seeking cover, 
would naturally choose the slope of a hill away from the enemy, 
when a trained infantryman would know that he would be in 
greater safety on the other side of that hill where he would be 
closer to the enemy, but within that range where the enemy's bullets 
would travel in a flat trajectory and give him a chance to take 
advantage of the safety afforded by the slightest depression in the 
ground rather than remain behind that hill to suffer the long-range 
plunging fire of the enemy. 

How little does the ordinary citizen realize the difficulty of becom- 
ing a sharpshooter or expert in the use of the military rifle? Most 
of us have a vague impression that accurate shooting means merely 
straight pointing. The ordinary layman has little conception, for 
instance, of the influence of a slight wind on the course of a rifle 
bullet at a thousand yards' range. For accurate long-distance 
shooting this influence of wind upon the bullet must be accurately 
estimated and allowed for by a graduated instrument on the rifle 
called a wind gauge, and success or failure in sharpshooting and 
sniping may well depend upon the accuracy or inaccuracy with 



11 

which the problem of windage is solved. There is little understand- 
ing by most of us of the effect of light conditions — that with one 
condition of light there is a tendency to aim too high and with 
another condition of light that there is a tendency to aim too low, 
and that all this must be taken into consideration and accurately 
estimated and provided for in all fine rifle shooting. 

Space does not afford to do more than suggest the thousand details 
that must be mastered by the proficient officer of Infantry. Prob- 
lems of organization and problems of equipment have to be worked 
out by the most painstaking and scientific observation and deduc- 
tion. For instance, only large experience and accurate estimate has 
established the general principle that the load of the infantryman 
must not exceed one-third the weight of the individual soldier if 
the best efficiency is to be obtained. One loiows vaguely that 
soldiers ar^ organized into companies, battalions, regiments, bri- 
gades, divisions, and armies, but why is each unit organized as to 
number and material as laid down in tables of organization and 
drill book ? The most profound study of experience has taught that 
certain organizations are best adapted for the handling of given 
masses of troops. For instance, the company contains the greatest 
number of men in which the relation of the personal influence of 
the individual leader or his subordinates can be maintained. And 
the battalion has worked out to be the normal fighting unit that can 
best be handled in actual combat by one man's directions when in 
the fighting are involved large numbers. And the regiment has 
been found convenient for the purpose of obtaining a proper super- 
vision of the three battalions. The brigade is organized similarly 
as a convenient organization in which to combine three regiments, 
while the division, combined as it is of all arms. Infantry, Cavalry, 
Artillery and auxiliary troops, comprises that mass of men most 
suited for transportation on a single road and for action as a unit 
in great operations where large armies are involved. 

Never has the stress of war called forth the moral qualities which 
present war conditions require of the Infantry : To face destruction 
by the enemy's Artillery when he is 5 or 6 miles from a point where 
he himself can inflict injury in return, suffer casualties in advancing 
over great stretches of ground without firing a shot, to face the 
thunderbolts of large caliber guns and howitzers, to endure the rain 
of death of shrapnel and high explosives, to meet the withering hail 
of the hell-spitting mitrailleuse, to face the steel-jacketed sheet of 
rifle fire, even to suffer death at the hands of one's own supporting 
Artillery, cut the wire entanglement, mount the parapet, to give or 
receive the death thrust of the bayonet's cold steel. This is what 
modern warfare requires of the infantryman. To meet the test 



12 

he must be faithfully and arduously trained. And to give him this 
training there must be develojoed the learned and successful officer 
who comprehends his task. 

CAVALKT. 

The cavalryman must be reasonably proficient in all that pertains 
to the lore of the infantryman, but of course in a lesser degree. In 
addition he must be a master of the horse. He must know how 
best to train man and horse, for the trained man increases the power 
of the horse to render service, and the trained horse makes infinitely 
less demilnd upon the physical strength of the rider than does the 
untrained horse. Mobility is one of the decisive factors in war. 
Napoleon said that "The power of an army, like the quantity of 
movement in mechanics, is measured by the product of its mass by 
its rate of motion." Nothing requires more care, laiowledge, and 
practical experience than is needed to develop proficiency in con- 
serving the energy and power of the horse. The Cavalry officer 
must be an expert in this, as also he must be an expert in the use 
of the pistol and the sword. Despite the condition of the western 
European battle front, with its trenches and intricate field fortifi- 
cations, highly trained and powerful bodies of Cavalry are as 
essential to the successful conduct of war as ever. 

FIELD ARTLLLE15Y. 

Fine appreciation of wh^t Field Artillery means in modern war 
was shown by the colored applicant for enlistment in one of the 
so-called immune regiments recruited in a Southern State during 
the War with Spain. A colored recruiting sergeant discussing 
warfare in general and in particular waxed fervent in his exposi- 
tion, finally ending an animated account of the excitement of war 
by telling the applicant that in the armies of the world there were 
even guns that shot a thousand pounds of steel from 10 to 15 
miles. "Great Lawd!" said the discouraged patriot, "none of that 
for me. A man would run all day and get shot at sundown." 

This conversation accurately exhibited the present conditions of 
war as far as the effects of artillery fire are concerned. Until 1896, 
when the French developed the long recoil rapid-fire field gun, the 
artillery always occupied direct laying positions — in other words, 
positions from which the targets could be seen from the guns. 
After the adoption of the long recoil system the general rule was 
and is to occupy masked or indirect laying positions : in other words, 
positions from which the targets remain invisible to the gunners at 
artillery ranges hitherto unheard of in war. But now all normal 
combats are carried on between gunners that can not possibly see 
one another. The officer who is observing the fire of his battery 



13 

may be a couple of miles in front of his guns, tucked away in an 
observation trench, perched in a tree or in a haystack, connected 
Avith his batter}^ by land telephone. Or the observer may be hover- 
ing over the enemy objective a half mile or more in the air, bringing 
back or signaling back information as to the effect of the fire. To 
meet these changed conditions a precise system of range finding by 
various angle-measuring instruments and intricate optical devices 
has been wrought out and mastered. 

The responsibility for accurate shooting by the Artillery is greater 
than ever before. It is impossible for the Infantry to advance with- 
out the fullest support from the Artillery. It is necessary that this 
support be continued until one's own troops are very near to the 
enemy, so that the enemy fire may be beaten down. But to render 
this support at the last moment without slaughtering one's own 
soldiers in the excitement and heat of battle is a great problem. 
Nothing will destroy the morale of Infantry more quickly than lack 
of confidence in its supporting Artillery, with the consequent fear 
that in an assault on an eneniy position not only will there be danger 
from foe, but equal danger from friend. It is easily seen that the 
most thorough and arduous training is necessary to attain the re- 
quired degree of perfection. The Field Artillery officer must be 
an expert in the erection of field telephones and buzzers, in map 
making, scouting, and panoramic sketching. He must be a horse 
master, an expert in the conservation of human and animal energy, 
a good mathematician, a field astronomer, and possess a character 
reliable for coolness, steadfastness, and endurance. 

COxVST ARTILLERY. 

The great Coast Artillery service really demonstrates itself to the 
ordinary mind. Kespect is compelled for the men who handle the 
giant guns of our harbor defenses, operate the intricate machinery 
necessary for their manipulation, and execute the complicated cal- 
culations that have to be made in estimating ranges. A gun that 
shoots a projectile weighing a ton 20,000 yards and develops a 
muzzle energy of approximately 126,000 foot-tons speaks for itself. 
These are the guns that make it possible for the fleet to seek the 
enemy wherever it may be advisable, leaving strategic harbors and 
important cities to the protection of the Coast Artillery as far as 
the danger of attack from a hostile fleet is concerned. This is 
the service that offers an asylum to the fleet in case it needs such 
asylum in the face of a superior enemy or after having been 
roughly handled. It must not be assumed that the Coast Artillery 
protects the coasts. We have about 5,000 miles of coast line, 
about 300 miles of which are under the potential protection 



14 

of coast-defense guns. But the Coast Artillery does perform the 
absolutely essential service of giving freedom to the fleet by the 
protection of cities and harbors. The guns vary in caliber from 
3-inch to 16-inch, their respective projectiles weighing from 15 
pounds to 2,400 pounds. The Coast Artillery officer must be an 
expert in the management of power plants and electrical devices. 
He must be familiar with the operation of searchlights, telephone 
systems, angle-measuring instruments, observing instruments, plot- 
ting boards, range-correction })oards, deflection boards, speaking 
tubes, anemometers, psychrometers, and other minor appliances. 
The elements of fire control are mounted at various parts of the 
fortifications, and the care and operation of the system involve a 
fundamental knowledge of all the apparatus and its application to 
the service of the guns. And it must be remembered that the 
normal target for the Coast Artillery is a swiftly moving vessel, 
and the problem resolves itself often into the seemingly impossible 
task of hitting Avith a solid shot a vessel 6 or 7 miles away, moving 
at the rate of from 20 to 30 miles an hour. The problem seems 
more difficult of solution than shooting ducks with a rifle rather 
than a shotgun. Weather conditions must be taken into considera- 
tion as Avell as the motion of the target. As conditions vary from 
day to day they affect materially the flight of the projectile. The 
density of the atmosphere as affecting the resistance offered to the 
projectile in flight; the velocity of the wind, which operates in like 
manner; and the height of the tide, as affecting the relative eleva- 
tions of the gun and vessel, all must be taken into account. Obvi- 
ously, all observations and calculations must be completed in a very 
brief period of time, and the most careful training is required to 
bring about that coordination of all the elements necessary to permit 
one of these huge guns to be fired accurately once every minute. 

If it has in any wise been demonstrated that those who are en- 
gaged in the training and administration of the units and branches 
that go to make up an army merit the respect that is due to worthy 
members of a learned profession, then it is obvious that general 
officers, exercising the higher commands in which it is necessary to 
bring together and coordinate and in war direct to a common end 
all the elements that make up an army, must be men of the highest 
capacity and best judgment. 

Every profession has not only its technicalities and requirements 
for efficiency, but it also has its ethics. Whatever else may be said 
of the Army as a learned profession, there is no doubt of the fact 
that the ethics of the profession can not be surpassed by those of 
any human profession. Every worthy officer realizes that shoddy 
work, slovenliness, lack of industry, and proficiency may and will 



15 

mean not the loss of property but at the very least the destruction of 
human life. And without affectation and without cant, there under- 
lie the work of the true soldier the loiowledge and belief that as 
long as human nature remains as it is, the very honor and life of 
his nation some day is bound to depend on the thoroughness and 
fidelity with which he executes his trust. The code of ethics of the 
military profession may be summed up in the tAvo words "Honor" 
and "Fidelity." And in the Army of the United States the code is 
lived up to with a strictness that is full of reassurance that any test 
will be met in accordance with the best traditions of soldiers. 

[Reprinted by permission of the New Yorli Times from its issue of December 
5. 191.5.] 









isiiiii'y 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 395 234 9 



I 



